He fell to his knees, dazed, grip on his power lost. Fire exploded from him in an uncontrolled sphere. One of his men was blasted through the air to crunch into the cavern wall. The thing in the pool surged up in a glistening mass, enveloping and consuming my puppet and not shying from the flames but lapping them up. I stared in shock as its heaving bulk devoured the otherworldly fire.
Two of his servants had almost reached me when the shockwave of hot air reached us. They stumbled, disorientated. I clamped a hand to one’s arm. With the skin contact I was able to smash through his drugged mind with a mental war hammer, then crudely twist his perceptions. It was all so easy and I felt like a god playing with a new toy.
He drooled idiotically, then turned and stabbed his friend in the belly. In his mind his friend wore my face, and me his beloved master’s. He sawed open the man’s belly, intestines spilling out like links of sausage.
The magus blood sorcerer climbed to his feet. Flame began spiralling round his hands, faster and faster, building to a firestorm. He cocked his head to one side, listening. “Really? Must you find out what this secret locked away inside his head is? I know, I know, you don’t like anything kept from you.”
I went cold. Who was he talking to? What was he talking to?
The flames intensified. “Surely it is safer to burn him to a crisp? Oh very well, if you only need his head intact, your wish is my command, my god.”
I went cold. A god. He said there was a god inside him.
The thing in the pool was agitated, bulk crashing against rock. Earth and pebbles trickled from the ceiling. From the darkness above, a handful of glittering shard beasts scuttled down stalactites towards me.
There was still a small chance I could kill this murdering bastard. I could open myself up beyond my limits and rip my way into his mind. If I did that I’d likely die, or end up a twisted insane wretch even if I succeeded. If I fought and failed then this blood sorcerer would be free to carry out his foul plans. For Lynas’ sake I almost risked it, but with Charra sick he would have beat me black and blue for even contemplating it. Charra’s life was not something we would ever gamble with. If only I’d kept that damn alchemic bomb, then I could have blown the bastard to little pieces – yes, and no doubt bury Charra and yourself in the resulting cave-in.
From around the feet of the magus, pebbles and rocks were sucked up into his vortices of flame, glowing bright red.
I tore myself away from dreams of vengeance and ran for my life back down the tunnel.
WhumpWhumpWhumpWhump – flaming bolts of rock blasted from the vortices to explode against the cavern wall. Razored fragments of old bone and stone scythed out. The tunnel shook from multiple impacts. My left leg collapsed beneath me. I tried to keep moving, using the wall to keep myself upright. Explosions deafened me as I lurched blindly down the passage. The ceiling cracked and groaned, and finally came crashing down behind me. A dust cloud enveloped me. Choking and coughing I dragged myself forward. Visions of being buried alive kept me moving. Fragments of rock bounced off my back in eerie silence, my ears stunned and useless.
Eventually the air cleared and my ears started working again, the only noise that of my battered body scraping across the ground. A dim light in the darkness made my heart soar. I’d never been so eager to see light. No, that wasn’t true – visions of being a child locked in that room with the revenant flicked through my mind. Sweat burst from every pore.
Have to get to Charra, I told myself. Get help. My leg throbbed, the pain ramping up to searing agony that eclipsed that of my shoulder. I focused on the pain and used it to blot out my terror, crawling into the light to discover I’d left a bloody smear along the floor behind me. Jagged shards of hot rock had torn through boot and trousers to bury in flesh. My clothes still smouldered and I realized that my wounds being cauterized was the only thing saving me from bleeding out. Charra’s breathing was ragged, the red streaks angry and weeping. I had to get her out of here. If the poison didn’t kill her then that magus would when he came looking for the remains of the intruder.
The Worm of Magic was awake inside me and yelling promises to help if only I would let myself go. It was only a small terror compared to Charra dying in front of my eyes. My body was a wreck. What other option did I have? With a useless leg and a torn-up shoulder I couldn’t possibly carry her.
So I swallowed my terror and did what every part of my Collegiate indoctrination and common sense had trained me to deny. For the first time in my life I gave in to the Worm, flung wide the doors of my Gift and welcomed in unrestrained magic.
Power roared into me. I was a demigod filled with all the power of life and death. All tiredness and pain washed away and my wounds itched with quickened healing. Strength returned tenfold. The darkness retreated to a crystal-sharp half-light.
My sanity cracked. The physical world wavered around me, glimpses of other worlds and strange dimensions drifting past my eyes. I slid towards Charra, tripped out on the majesty of creation, trails of thought billowing out behind me. Below my feet lay a yawning abyss of darkness, a place I knew I could never escape. A cloud of creatures darted in and out of my thoughts like a shoal of silverfish. It was so tempting to drift off on a wave of magic, my mind gone elsewhere, leaving my body behind as a mindless animal host for the Worm of Magic, or perhaps an empty suit of meat for something else to take up residence. A dark mass blotted out my vision. The feeding things fled from a vast predator. I shuddered and flinched back to the physical, focusing solely on Charra.
I picked her up, light as air, and cradled her carefully, afraid I might crush her brittle human bones. Tendrils of dark magic were spreading towards her heart. Convinced of my own god-like power, I almost reached into her body to rip them out, but managed to stop at the last moment. My confidence was a delusion; I didn’t have the knowledge or skill to heal, and probably never would. The tides of magic roared through me, trying to twist my mind and body, but through force of will and the mental conditioning required for my talent, I resisted the worst of magic’s seductions. For now.
I broke into a sprint, feeling my way through air currents towards the freshest air, through cavern and corridor and tomb, until I came to a place that shook me to my core. My delusion of godlike power cracked and dropped away beneath me. I staggered through a doorway cut through a rock fall and into the room where I had been trapped as a child. The old stone block with strange carvings had been removed, but otherwise the room remained untouched.
I couldn’t control myself – my hand snapped out and blades of air lashed out to shred the room, gouging stone. I howled with the effort, power straining mind and body. Vulgar magic was arduous for me, something like this normally impossible. The walls started to crack and crumble. Pain roared through me. I drew deeper on the magic and flung out all my fear. I had to destroy this room. These nightmares haunted me and destroying them was the most important thing in my world.
Charra groaned, her breathing too rapid. It cut right through my self-absorbed fear – my only living friend was far more important. She was the only light in the dark of my heart that kept me human.
I tried to stop, and found that I couldn’t halt the magic. I had opened myself too wide and drawn too deep. Panic tried to rise and failed, swamped by the pleasures of pain, power and promise. It hurt, and it was ecstasy. My Gift shuddered, threatening to tear itself apart due to the torrent roaring through it. I’d be little more than a gaping hole through which magic flowed into the world – an abomination, warped and twisted at the bestial whims of the Worm. I found myself at peace, not caring. Maybe it would even be a good thing? Pleasure pulsed at the thought.
Agony exploded in my leg, cutting through pleasure and disrupting the aeromancy to drive me to my knees. A few flickers of air swirled in the dust. The surge of magic slowed. Dissever had somehow managed to slice through its sheath and into my leg. Before I knew what I was doing my hand found the hilt. Bloodlust and rage swarmed through me, fighting back the pleasure a
nd dreamy confidence, and stamping down my terror of the dark.
Idiot, Dissever thought at me. Brainless bald ape. Do not. I will not be lost again. Care for the female, you fool.
Charra!
Fucking weak idiot, letting myself get sucked in. I clutched her to my chest and glanced at the half-destroyed room of my nightmares. Then I turned my back on it and ran for the way out. I sped through the tunnels I’d been carried from as a child, wishing that I was once again safe in Byzant’s arms. The magic stormed through me and my mind kept drifting off in scattered directions. Dissever’s counteracting influence rapidly waned.
An archway lay ahead, closed by a gate of massive warded steel bars blocking my exit from Boneyards. Barely pausing, I hefted Dissever and sliced through. Warded steel sparked, then parted and thudded to the ground. I stepped through the hole and an array of hidden wards activated. I spun to shield Charra with my body. An alarm shrieked and a web of force squeezed me like a giant fist. Despite being filled with a torrent of power, I was held fast, barely able to breathe. Magic built up inside me, screaming to be unleashed. These paltry wards couldn’t hold me. Nothing could hold Walker. I shuddered, trying to fight the madness down.
A trio of magi tore in, magic crackling around them ready to destroy whatever twisted monstrosity had emerged from the depths.
Dissever writhed from my grip. Jagged metal teeth pierced my wounded leg and then the enchanted weapon sagged, black iron turning into a viscous liquid that flowed into the cut, hiding inside the wound. The pain felt distant, like it belonged to somebody else. “Help her!” I pleaded. “She’s been poisoned.” The floodwaters of magic rose inside me, an unstoppable tide breaking through every shred of my restraint.
The magi gasped, seeing Charra’s arm dangling limp. All three lifted their hands and unstoppable power slammed into me.
Survive, Dissever commanded. I am not done with you yet.
Everything went dark.
Chapter 20
I drifted in and out of consciousness, living more in dream than reality. Every so often I woke in agony, followed by a vague sensation of soup being spooned down my throat before something sweet and sticky was squirted into my mouth, flinging me back into the dream…
“Stop fidgeting, boy.”
When the Archmagus tells me to stay still, I dare not even blink – even if he does have my eyelid peeled back and is blinding me with a candle held in front of my eye. He goes through the same checks and tests again and again, every day. It is tedious. At least the beeswax candles favoured by the Archmagus fill his chambers with the delicate scent of honey rather than the reeking incense used elsewhere in the Collegiate.
“Move your eyes from side to side again,” he orders.
I look back and forth across his personal quarters while sinister animal heads mounted on the walls stare back at me with glassy eyes. His rooms are packed with an assortment of intriguing mechanisms and bubbling vials and tubes that beg to be poked and prodded. His possessions are obsessively orderly and despite the amount packed into the room everything has its set place; I suspect that his servants live in mortal fear of moving something when cleaning. It is cold in the Archmagus’ rooms and all I want to do is huddle next to the hearth and savour the warmth and the light – especially the light. It has been weeks since I was carried from the Boneyards, but I still can’t be alone at night without a candle by my bedside, and even then I only manage to sleep thanks to exhaustion. The nightmares are relentless.
My eyelid slaps back against my eye. I reach up and rub the tears away, multi-coloured wisps dancing across my vision. Byzant strokes his beard, deep in thought. I stay put, keep my eyes down and hope that he is finally done with me. I say nothing, fearful I won’t speak properly to the Archmagus and get punished, even thought he has only ever been considerate towards me.
“Has the fever abated?” he says, concerned, his hand cold against my forehead.
“Yes, Archmagus. Over a week ago.”
“Eating well?”
My face twists. “Mistress Sellars makes sure that I eat nothing but stin… uh… healthy foods.”
“Mmm, good, good,” he replies, distracted. Eventually he lifts up my chin with a liver-spotted hand. “Try once more. What am I thinking of?”
I swallow and stare into his eyes, take a deep breath and concentrate on opening my Gift, reaching out to him. For a moment everything seems to go fuzzy and I feel lightheaded, but that’s all. I try again, and all I get is a headache.
After a while the Archmagus sighs and shakes his head. I couldn’t manipulate fire, water, earth or air, and now this, whatever it is. I’ve disappointed him yet again. I’m useless. He strokes his beard, great emerald ring glinting in the firelight. “That is enough for today, young Edrin.” A twinkle appears in his eyes and a smile creases his lips. “Go and get yourself something decent to eat. Perhaps something that does not stink.” My face flushes red. “If Mistress Sellars objects then tell her to pass her protestations on to me. What do you desire?”
I grin. Finally I’ll get some decent grub in my belly. “I can’t wait to tuck into some smoked haddock.” I frown and scratch my head. “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I hate fish. I meant to say that I fancy a big slice of cheese and some roast pork.”
The smile on the Archmagus’ face is worse than death-grins on corpses, and I’ve seen a fair few. His eyes are lumps of ice. He says nothing, just shivers, turns and waves me away. I am halfway out when he unexpectedly speaks. “I will help you to manage this special Gift that you have been granted. You will come at the same time every week without fail.”
“Yes, Archmagus,” I squeak, walking from his quarters as quickly as I can without running. Outside the great iron-bound doors I sag against the wall, shaking. Have I said something wrong? I don’t even know what all of this is about. Surely private tuition with the Archmagus is a rare privilege reserved for children from the High Houses? It is almost like he suspects me of something bad. I find myself shaking and don’t know why. I mull it over as I walk to the kitchens.
My belly rumbles and my mouth waters as the scent of a pig roasting on the spit wafts down the hall. I dump all those confused thoughts into the back of my mind.
The dream began fading, piece by piece, until it dwindled away to nothingness. I felt myself clothed in heavier, aching flesh.
I cracked open sleep-crusted eyes, feeling like they were filled with broken glass. A blurry blue shape sat on a chair by the foot of the bed, tinkering with some sort of glinting metal object. I was dozy and weak, barely able to focus. There were no windows in the room, but a gem-light embedded in the wall gave off more than enough light for me to recognize the fine stonework and the distinctively ornate vaulted ceiling. I was in the Collegiate? I tried to push myself up to peer at the figure by my bed, but found myself chained to the steel frame, manacle bands digging into wrists and ankles. I was naked and covered only by a thin blanket, but didn’t feel unhappy having been stripped and chained, even though I should. I didn’t feel much of anything but numbness and a raging thirst.
“Byzant?” I said, my tongue thick and swollen. “S’that you?”
The figure stood. “Hardly,” she said, voice firm but with an edge of something more – a mix of resentment and relief. “Archmagus Byzant went missing ten years ago. Would you happen to know anything about that?”
Her voice seemed naggingly familiar but I couldn’t quite put a name to it. I blinked away the gunk and peered through one eye, unable to focus with two. She wore robes of finest blue Ahramish silk, and curly brown hair spilled around her shoulders. A name floated up from somewhere. “Cillian? That you?” As my vision cleared I noted the odd device in her hands, comprised of metal circles holding coloured glass discs. It looked harmless, but in this den of vipers it was wise to distrust everything. “What do you have there?”
“It is I, Edrin.” Cillian sighed and shook her head. She flicked out a disc of red glass and held it up to the oil la
mp, splashing red light across the wall. “No need to be afraid, it is merely a tool for new initiates, a visual representation of the Gift.” She flicked out a blue disc to turn the light magenta, returned them and then held up a lone disc of yellow to filter the light. “I intend to use it to demonstrate that the source of light, representing magic, is the same for all, but that each Gift filters it differently.” She held the disc closer to the lamp – to the source of magic – and the glass disc bubbled and melted. Sugar-glass rather than true glass. “I also feel it to be an elegant illustration of the inherent dangers.” She studied my face. “Tell me, Magus Edrin Walker, why did you flee Setharis shortly after the god Artha died and Archmagus Byzant disappeared? Why did you go rogue?”
She said nothing more. The silence stretched and deepened while she waited for an answer. On a small table beside the bed a jug of water called to me, my throat dry and rasping, but chained to the bed it was just a different kind of torture for me. I frowned, head clearing slightly. “You can’t blame me for every ill.”
She stared at me, face unreadable. “You claim it to be mere coincidence? If it was not you, then why flee? Who else would we suspect under such circumstances?”
“Byzant would have squashed me like a bug.” Which he would have. Effortlessly. Byzant had been older and scarier than any magus in existence, that old crone Shadea excepted. “My leaving had nothing to do with that, and in any case I left before he disappeared.”
“We only have your word for that, and I am certain it is merely blind coincidence that you leave the very same day a god dies and then you return shortly after the rest of our gods go missing,” Cillian said, voice oozing sarcasm. “You really must forgive my entirely unwarranted scepticism. We have had you tested and the loyalty of the Forging is still in place; without that I would not believe a single word you say.” It wasn’t like she had any cause to trust me, not after the way I’d treated her in the past, but it still rankled. She looked over the scars running down my face and neck. “What happened to you?”
The Traitor God Page 21